With leaders like these,
we need new leaders

© David Chartrand

    I have this vision about the kind of leadership America needs. I close my eyes and see a wild goose, a flute and a dancing girl.

    Never mind that vision. I mean the vision where I pick up the Daily Dispatch-News-Reader-Bugle here in Happy Hollow and read the following story:

   Hubert Redcash, president of Happy Hollow First National Bank, announced yesterday that, despite encouragement from civic leaders, he will not run for city council in the spring elections. “I have decided instead to give something else back to the town that has given so much to me,” Mr. Redcash said during a shindig at Orndoppy’s Bakery, during which Mrs. O, sporting a fetching new summer hat, treated guests to her famous buttermilk Snickerdoodles. "I am forming a Leadership Council," Redcash continued, "comprised of business executives who will be asked to offer independent analysis and critique of the decisions made by the city council, the school board and the chamber of commerce. I feel this is how I can best serve my beloved Happy Hollow."

    If Mr. Redcash were to say such a thing, everyone in Happy Hollow would assume he was kidding around. If he knows what’s good for his business, that is. Same goes for Mrs. Orndoppy.

   From Happy Hollow to Washington, D.C., “leadership” is often a private club, with membership open only to those who hold public office or run major businesses. One who seeks to serve from outside the club is not a leader. He is a “watchdog” or “activist” or “advocate.” We pause here to consult our thesaurus for less impolite ways to write, “crazy loon whom no one should take seriously.”

   Karl Peterjohn heads an organization in Wichita devoted to questioning how taxes are collected and spent in Kansas. I have no idea if Peterjohn is correct about government spending and waste but he doesn’t seem crazy. He has a master’s degree in economics and a beard and everything. Yet no one in Kansas refers to him as a leader.

   “When I am invited to speak, “ Peterjohn says, “I’m introduced as a taxpayer watchdog or taxpayer lobbyist. My critics use other words to describe me. Leader is not one of them.”

   This narrow view is surprising, given that leadership in America is a huge industry. People pay serious money to attend leadership training seminars and leadership rallies conducted by experts who know everything there is to know about leadership, including how to get rich by selling leadership DVDs and newsletters. You’d think there might be room here for competing viewpoints, but the message from leadership hustlers is always the same.

  They talk funny, too. “Leadership,” according to one popular expert, “is the energetic process of getting fully and willingly committed to a new and sustainable course of action to meet commonly agreed objectives while having commonly held values."

   Notice what’s missing here? Besides a comma, I mean. There is no mention of questioning other leaders. I guess you only learn about that at watchdog seminars.

   The dictionary definition of leadership doesn’t mention “sustainable course of action” or “commonly held values.” It says that a leader is, well, one who leads. Leadership requires followship and anyone can do it. That’s why kids love playing follow-the-leader; so do grownups. Just look around. The leader is whomever you (or I, for that matter) choose to follow.

   So I close my eyes sometimes and envision how events might have been altered by different definitions of leadership. Maybe we wouldn’t have made so many mistakes in the war on terrorism or in preparations for natural disasters if the government had more than one definition of leadership.

   Maybe some chief executives wouldn’t have been hauled off in handcuffs if their boards of directors had sought out other voices on the management team — other than the voices calling for “sustainable courses of action.” Imagine how many small, dying towns wouldn’t be small and dying if they gave community leadership awards to all kinds of people — like Mr. Redcash and Mrs. Orndoppy.

   They say leaders are born, not made. Or maybe it’s vice-versa. Like we really care. It doesn’t matter if leaders are evolved from apes or the product of intelligent design. What matters is that we find leaders who understand that those who question and challenge them might be leaders, too. No matter what we call them.